Future of mobile CPUs, part 2: What’s ahead for the major players?

Apple and Samsung face different challenges than Nvidia, Intel, and Qualcomm.

Qualcomm

The Verizon 4G Jetpack Mobile Hotspot 890L uses a Qualcomm LTE modem.

Eric Bangeman/Ars Technica

Qualcomm is the acknowledged king of wireless. In the mid 1990s, Qualcomm pioneered (and heavily patented) CDMA, which forms the basis of most modern wireless communication. Many other firms pay royalties to Qualcomm, and the company is typically first to market with new wireless modems. As a result of this expertise, Qualcomm modems are industry leading and commonly sold together with SoCs under the Snapdragon brand name. The company is the largest merchant vendor of smartphone chips.

Qualcomm internally designs nearly every piece of IP required for smartphones and tablets, though the company is fabless and reliant on external manufacturing. Qualcomm is a longstanding ARM architecture licensee, with two custom cores: Scorpion and Krait. The former lies between the Cortex A8 and A9 in performance, while the latter is comparable to a Cortex A15.

The Adreno graphics (respelled: Radeon) were acquired from AMD shortly after the ATI acquisition. The current GPU is a modern, unified shader design with OpenCL 1.2. Ironically, the driver ecosystem is lagging behind the hardware. Despite being the GPU for the Windows Phone platform, it is incapable of DX10+ and relegated to DX9. Coming from the smartphone world, Qualcomm has less experience with both the Windows ecosystem and the higher performance targets for tablets.

Qualcomm was first to market, and for all intents and purposes is still the only company with an LTE modem today. It has a multimode product that is quite compelling for phones, although not particularly helpful for tablets. Some SoCs already offer an integrated multimode LTE modem, a significant advantage over the competition.

Qualcomm is in a uniquely strong situation at the moment, given its dominance in wireless communications. Its time-to-market advantage for LTE modems has translated into a tremendous market presence for the Snapdragon platform. Since many customers need Qualcomm’s LTE modem, it's easy to convince them to buy a bundled SoC as well. However, for tablets, the company has made very little progress, because wireless is not very important; it appears that the actual SoC performance is not strong enough for tablets

This hints at a big challenge over the coming years. Right now, Qualcomm is at a high point from both discrete LTE modem sales and the attached SoCs for many smartphones. In the coming years, Broadcom, Intel, LG, Nvidia, Samsung, and others will roll out discrete and integrated LTE modems, fundamentally changing the ecosystem into a competitive market. This will level the playing field and undermine a crucial Qualcomm advantage. The result will be an increased emphasis on the SoC, particularly the CPU and graphics, an area where Qualcomm appears to be weaker.

As a result, Qualcomm has to step up the investment in custom CPU and graphics to improve the SoC platform. The latter seems to be the more challenging of the two areas. As noted above, Adreno has targeted OpenGL for many years, but the team has less experience with modern graphics APIs (particularly Windows) than other companies. The other challenge for Qualcomm is navigating a future where SoC design and manufacturing are more and more closely entwined. The company already works with foundries to develop process technology, and that expertise will become more valuable over time.

Overall, Qualcomm has a bright future ahead. In all likelihood, the company will continue to be the leading merchant SoC vendor for smartphones for many years. However, Qualcomm is likely to be at a peak in terms of market share, as competitors gain expertise with LTE and catch up in terms of wireless connectivity. The market is growing fast enough that Qualcomm will still probably grow, just at a slightly slower rate.

In tablets, Qualcomm has an opportunity to expand as the Snapdragon platform becomes more compelling. Given the company’s minimal presence, it would be surprising if Snapdragon did not become a significant platform, but there is no real reason to believe that Qualcomm will become a dominant player.

Intel

Intel is the titan of the semiconductor industry; it's renowned for process technology that's two years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of the actual node (e.g., 22nm vs. 28nm today) and four years in terms of performance enhancements such as (multigate architectures) FinFETs. Intel’s design teams are world class and the x86 SoCs are the standard for PCs and servers, where Intel is the dominant player by every metric. Despite these formidable assets, when it comes to tablets and smartphones, Intel is largely on the outside looking in.

Over the last two to three years, Intel has shifted to focus on mobile. This has been a slow process, because it spans both manufacturing and design. Realistically, this shift won’t be complete for another year (or longer). Intel’s mobile manufacturing is currently on par with the foundries, albeit with higher performance; the company aims for the normal 12-18 month process technology lead in the 2014-2015 timeframe.

Intel owns nearly all the IP necessary for mobile devices. Intel’s x86 CPU cores are quite differentiated; the high-end cores (e.g., Haswell) are unmatched throughout the industry, whereas the current-generation Atom is frankly an antiquated in-order design that delivers surprisingly competitive performance. These cores are compatible with older Windows applications, a unique selling point. Of course, Android is mostly oriented around ARM, which is a potential challenge. While there is a small performance/power disadvantage for x86, it is quite minimal and no barrier to a company with the resources of Intel.

Intel’s smartphone graphics are licensed from Imagination Technologies, while it appears that tablets will probably rely on the internally developed Gen architecture, which is also used for client PCs. The Gen graphics have never been regarded as industry-leading for PCs due to years of neglect. But the power efficiency is very good, and in recent years the Gen architecture has become quite respectable. Intel also has far more experience with the graphics ecosystem than all save Nvidia and Imagination.

As part of shifting into mobile, Intel purchased Infineon Wireless, widely regarded as the best 2G/3G modem vendor. Currently, the wireless modems are discrete and there is no LTE version available yet.

Intel’s SoCs are already reasonably competitive using an outdated CPU design, which will be updated to a new out-of-order core at the end of this year. More importantly, Intel has set an aggressive roadmap for process technology and boosting CPU and graphics performance that will be hard to match.

Future SoCs will use a low-power Atom core for smartphones and more compact tablets (e.g., ~2-6W), with the high performance cores for high-end tablets (e.g., ~5-8W power budget). Intel will continue to use Gen graphics for tablets, because of the superior Windows drivers compared to Imagination. For smartphones, Intel’s design team will use Imagination for several years to come; however, it seems possible that it will try and adapt the Gen architecture below the 2W level to provide an internally developed option.

On the wireless front, there seems to be some delays in terms of rolling out an LTE modem; but the expertise and resources are in place, with an integrated product expected in late 2014 or early 2015. In the meantime, the company can certainly offer a good product for carriers without LTE.

Overall, Intel is still pulling all the pieces together for smartphones. There may be some initial progress this year, but realistically the company will spend the next year earning the trust of OEMs and will not have any substantial advantages until 2014 and 2015. At that point, it is likely that Intel will be able to offer products with superior performance by virtue of its manufacturing advantage. This does not guarantee success, but it sets the stage for Intel to make real progress and gain market share. Even with a sustained advantage, though, the best-case outcome for Intel is becoming a significant player but remaining behind Qualcomm in smartphones.

In tablets, Intel should have viable products earlier and make more significant gains. First, tablets are closer to PCs with a minimal reliance on wireless, so the delays for LTE are mostly irrelevant. Second, an x86 processor offers full Windows compatibility, which is a significant benefit, especially for business users. Third, Intel will have a product portfolio with high performance CPU and GPU cores, which will be hard for competitors to match. Last, the tablet market is still developing and therefore much easier to enter. While it is hard to imagine Intel as the largest merchant SoC vendor for smartphones, it is conceivable for tablets.

Nvidia

Nvidia is another company that has made its name in the PC world, where it is the leader in discrete graphics and is undergoing a transition to mobile. However, Nvidia is further along in this process than Intel, not only because the company is smaller, fabless, and more nimble, but also because it is feeling greater pressure from the shrinking of the traditional discrete GPU market.

As a company, Nvidia’s strengths lie in graphics, where it has unparalleled expertise in architecture and drivers. Embarrassingly, this expertise is beyond the reach of the mobile products; Nvidia’s unified shader GPUs are too hot for tablets or smartphones and will not be integrated for another couple of years. Wireless is also a potential strength through the acquisition of Icera, which designs programmable multimode modems. Icera’s software-defined radio approach is quite novel and promises several advantages, such as firmware upgrades to new protocols. However, it is also relatively unproven for phones.

Nvidia’s current solutions all rely on standard ARM cores, though Nvidia has added a clever twist with the so-called “companion core,” an extra core that runs background tasks at lower performance (and lower power) than the main cores. This technique relies on certain manufacturing options that will not be available at 20nm. Conveniently though, the company is developing a custom ARM core that should be available at that time and presumably has better efficiency than standard ARM cores. It's Nvidia’s first effort in this area though, and it may take another generation to get things fully polished.

Nvidia’s Tegra line of SoCs has some tablet-design wins, notably the Microsoft Surface, but only recently become a viable option for smartphones. Previously, the SoCs were too power-hungry for a phone form factor and moreover lacked any baseband. Recently though, the company announced a quad-core SoC that integrates the Icera LTE modem and marks the first real chance for Nvidia in the smartphone market. Tablets are less power-sensitive and have been much more amenable to Tegra, although the company has relatively little market share.

In the near-term Nvidia is unlikely to make significant progress. Over a longer time period the company has an opportunity to carve out a position in the mobile market, although it will still be a smaller player than the other four contenders. Compared to the other companies profiled here, Nvidia’s fate is far less certain and involves substantially more risk.

Eventually, Nvidia’s graphics expertise should prove to be rather helpful, but they must survive long enough to successfully integrate an efficient unified-shader architecture into the Tegra line. Similarly, while the company now has integrated multimode modems, the solution is unproven to customers and will take several years to earn design wins and the trust of handset vendors.

Unlike the other companies, which have considerable expertise in circuit design or manufacturing, Nvidia has historically been stronger in architecture and much weaker in the former areas. For example, its first 40nm GPU (Fermi) had significant delays and problems with power consumption. These sorts of issues are vastly more problematic in mobile devices, where power is a first order constraint. Fortunately, the company seems to have recognized these challenges and is taking steps to improve.

Summary

Looking five to ten years out is a difficult endeavor at best, and doubly so for a rapidly changing market such as the one for mobile SoCs. At that distance, the details are indiscernible and only the vague shape is visible. It is clear that the market is growing rapidly, which creates opportunities for both incumbent and new firms. However, much of that growth will be outside the developed world as many feature phone owners upgrade to smartphones.

Right now, the leadership for mobile devices resides in the hands of Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm. The first two heavily emphasize a vertically integrated approach selling systems based around internally developed SoCs, while the latter is the dominant merchant SoC vendor for smartphones.

Over the next decade, Intel and Nvidia (and others that are beyond the scope of this article) will become significant contenders for tablet and smartphone SoCs. Intel aims to leverage a manufacturing advantage and superior Windows compatibility into a strong position, and it stands a credible chance of becoming a significant player, behind Qualcomm in smartphones and potentially a leader in tablets. Nvidia faces considerably more challenges, although it has made more progress to date, particularly on LTE integration. Both companies are likely to find their fortunes rising in 2015 and onwards as they are able to take advantage of their unique specialties (x86/manufacturing and graphics).

The three leading companies will continue to play a significant role for many years to come and are unlikely to be unseated. Of the three though, Qualcomm is at a particularly vulnerable point, given the tremendous successes with the first generation of LTE smartphones. The market will be substantially more competitive when many competitors also have viable 4G offerings. Fortunately, the market is growing, which provides plenty of opportunities for incumbents and new entrants alike in the coming years.